Emily

with Jellema/Ross



once her dress
her dress was white
pockets filled
with snow and ice
her dress
its hem was endless
a sentence by Dickinson
sewn on a scrap

small hands gath'ring
a view condensed
haunted by the doubled-edge
of solitude, and reams
of braided words that seemed
a soundless stretch
a depth of blue

her girdle fast
like a finger band
a gasp cinched
in a sachet
a cricket caged
in a locket
round her neck

round her hair
a ribbon of red
an ache escaped
its lacings and clasps
undo this knot twined
'neath her breast

Listen ~

Her wrist pulsed
slender threads
a beat beneath
fingertips

her wrist
her wrist

her dress was white
'twas pockets
filled with snow and ice
she walked
in winter on the frozen lake
she pictured the thawing

she saw she saw
the harebell field
stared like a sea
dense like a promise,
a splayed memory


Written with Reka Jellema & Kathryn Ross

© Bonsack/Jellema/Ross
October 2014